by Moni Mohsin
‘So you admit, then, that there are atrocious things going on in East Pakistan?’ Tariq asked the colonel.
‘Civil war is not a polite, sanitary affair. It’s like war within a household. Between husband and wife, if you will.’
Hester cleared her throat. ‘Que sera, sera, as they say. What will be, will be. Now where’s that bread pudding? Hurry up, Hayat, or we’ll be here till tiffin tomorrow.’
7
A few days later, in Fareeda’s kitchen at Sabzbagh, Rehmat dropped a pinch of saffron into an empty teacup. He poured a teaspoon of warm water over the crimson threads and, cradling the cup in both hands, swirled the tangerine liquid. Bringing the cup up to his cauliflower nose, he inhaled deeply.
‘Ah, Lailu, smell that.’ The cook brought the cup over to the kitchen bench where Laila sat next to Bua. He held it under Laila’s nose. ‘Isn’t that the best scent in the world?’
Laila pushed it away. ‘I prefer the smell of petrol.’
‘Petrol? Petrol? How can you compare the smell of petrol to zafraan? Bua, what do we make of this girl?’
Busy lighting her hookah, Bua grunted.
‘All right, then, try these.’ Rehmat offered slivers of almonds to Laila. He had the hands of a surgeon, long of finger and slender of palm. When he sliced vegetables, his hands moved so fast that they seemed to blur. Though he was an inspired cook, Rehmat looked as if he’d never had a square meal himself. He lived on gallons of stewed tea and an endless chain of unfiltered K-2. Rehmat was in his sixties, but with his sparse white hair and thin turkey neck, he seemed ancient to Laila. Ancient and pious. There was a navy-blue smudge in the middle of his forehead. He had got it from touching his head to his straw prayer-mat five times a day, every day for all his adult life.
The smudge was a special sign of holiness, Barkat, the driver, had told Laila. On the day of judgement, when a stormy darkness would engulf the world and shrieking people would run helter-skelter, a piercing light would beam out from his forehead, and he’d be able to guide people to safety. Laila had seen pictures of coal-miners going down shafts with headlamps. She imagined Rehmat would look much the same on the day of judgement.
‘I was going to put these on the rice pudding I’m making for your grandmother, but you can have some.’ He held out the almonds to Laila.
‘Uh-uh. Don’t like nuts.’
‘Don’t like nuts, don’t like zafraan? What do you teach this little girl, Bua?’
‘She likes nuts. Laila, eat!’ Bua ordered. ‘They’re good for the brain. Brain gets used up with studies. Almonds put it back.’
‘Only if Rehmat lets me help make the pudding first,’ bargained Laila.
‘I’ve already cooked it, but you can help decorate it.’ He led Laila to the stone-topped table on which he rolled the dough for his paper-thin chappatis. He let her scatter the nuts over the pudding. Then he wiped the edges of the glass bowl with a dishcloth and pursed his lips.
‘What a waste of zafraan and almonds.’
‘Isn’t this the kheer we’re taking to Dadi’s house this evening?’ Laila asked.
‘Same, same. But who will eat? Your grandmother will take one bite only. Your parents will have two spoonfuls. You will have your ant’s share, and the rest that greedy Kaneez will polish off. Waste, such waste.’
‘Kaneez isn’t greedy. She’s so thin she’d look like a toothpick if she didn’t have a hunched back. She’s nice. She lets me shell peas,’ said Laila.
Rehmat snorted. ‘Making a child do all her work!’
Kaneez was not popular among the servants at Sabzbagh. They thought her aloof and haughty, as if the length of her service with Sardar Begum gave her licence to put on airs.
Laila was looking forward to this visit to Sardar Begum’s haveli with an equal mix of eagerness and dread. She was desperate to see Rani so she could apologize for her peevishness at the picnic and also find out why she had come to the church in such a state last Sunday. Though Bua had given her an explanation, Laila was not satisfied with it. Having been protected much of her life from unsavoury facts through evasive half-lies, Laila had developed finely tuned sensors when it came to detecting explanations from adults that did not ring true. Bua’s explanation seemed too pallid to justify such tumult in Rani. The only thing was to ask Rani herself, even if it meant receiving an earful first.
Laila joined Bua on the green bench. Over the years, the bench had served her as a grocery shop, a restaurant and a train. But now Laila thought of it mainly as a bench. She snuggled up to Bua and let her gaze roam over the large kitchen.
It was the nicest kitchen in the world. In Lahore, the cooking was done on a gas stove, but Rehmat cooked with big lumps of coal, lustrous as a crow’s breast, which gave off a warm, smoky aroma. A fridge hummed in one corner of the room, and an enamel sink with a brass tap was in the other. Whenever Laila turned the tap, the cool, metallic smell of brass would linger on her hands. No other tap in the world made her hands smell golden.
A battered swivel-chair stood by the bench. Rehmat had appropriated it when Tariq retired it from his study. It was reserved exclusively for Rehmat’s use. The only picture in the room was a gold-framed photograph of the Kaaba. It hung above the door to keep out evil influences. Rehmat’s son-in-law had brought it for him when he returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca.
‘Baba Rehmat, when will you go to Mecca for Haj?’ asked Laila.
‘When He summons me.’ Rehmat pointed upwards. ‘You can’t just get up and go; you have to be called. And He only calls those He wants.’
‘Dadi went.’
‘She was called.’
‘My other grandmother’s also been.’
‘She must have been called also.’
‘How come you’ve not been called even though you are so holy? Nor Barkat, nor Fazal, nor Kaneez? Does Allah only invite rich people?’
‘We-ell.’ Rehmat scratched his head. ‘Maybe the rich can accept his invitation more readily.’
‘And if you go without being called?’ asked Laila.
‘People try. But either they fall ill, or they can’t get on a plane, or when they land there is a letter already waiting calling them back because a dear one has died at home,’ explained Rehmat. ‘That happens to rich people also. You can’t go uninvited to Allah’s house.’
‘How will Allah call you?’
‘Maybe I’ll hear a voice. Or have a dream. Maybe someone will insist I go with him. He can act through agents, you know.’
‘Like secret agents in wars?’
‘Don’t talk about the war.’ Barkat’s weary voice sounded from the door.
‘Barkat!’ Laila ran to greet her parents’ driver. Barkat dropped a lump of raw sugar studded with almonds into Laila’s palm.
‘All the way from Simbal for you,’ said the driver, patting Laila’s head. ‘Made from my brother’s sugar cane. The sweetest, the purest, once eaten, never forgotten.’
‘Welcome back, Barkat. When did you return?’ asked Bua.
‘Our bus got in at midday.’
‘And not a moment too soon,’ muttered Rehmat. ‘My hands were about to fall off, cooking ten chapattis every meal time for that replacement driver. Man eats like a jinn. How’s your family?’
Barkat lowered himself on the bench beside Bua. Bua sat in her habitual pose, with one foot resting on the ground and the other drawn up on to the bench. From time to time, she dipped her head to draw on the hookah’s spout. Laila sat down between them.
Barkat removed his white, crocheted cap and ran a hand over his close-cropped grey hair. Although well over fifty, he was a burly man with big shoulders and strong arms. Usually, when he returned from a month’s stay in his village in far-off Potohar, his ruddy face glowed. He often boasted that the spring water in his village was the best in the world: ‘My Simbal is full of hundred-year-old men who can open walnuts with their teeth. Every second man in my Simbal is a soldier.’
But this time, he looked tired and drawn, a
s if he hadn’t slept for days. There were dark circles under his eyes.
‘Rehmat, make Barkat some tea,’ said Bua. ‘Is everything in your village all right, Barkat?’
‘Have they been making you slave in the fields? These Potoharis have no pity for anyone, not even old men like you.’ Rehmat chuckled as he handed Barkat a steaming mug of tea.
But Barkat did not rise to the jest. He placed the mug quietly between his feet.
‘Barkat, may my tongue drop off before it comes to pass, but there isn’t any bad news about Shareef from East Pakistan, is there?’ asked Rehmat.
Barkat’s head drooped. ‘Shareef is still alive,’ he replied. ‘As far as I know, he’s not wounded either.’
‘May the Holy Mother encase him in an invisible shield,’ said Bua. ‘May bullets bounce off him.’
‘But that is good news, Barkat,’ said Rehmat. ‘The boy is alive and well.’
‘Yes, but for how long? While we were in Simbal, news came that two boys from the village had been killed in action. They were younger than Shareef. I know their parents, I grew up with them. They are broken, broken.’ He shook his head.
Laila touched Barkat’s arm. ‘But Shareef will be fine. You’ll see, he’ll be fine.’
Barkat stroked her head and murmured, ‘Honey and sugar in your mouth, little one.’
‘When did you last hear from him?’ asked Bua.
‘Just before I left, I got this letter.’ Carefully, he removed a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket. ‘Here, Rehmat, you read. I’ve read it so many times that the letters look like ants to me.’
Rehmat unfolded the paper, fished out a pair of glasses from his breast pocket and placed them on the tip of his nose. He cleared his throat and began reading in a loud, formal voice.
‘My revered Abu, after asalam-elekum, I ask after your health. I hope, that with the grace of Almighty Allah, you, my mother, my brother and my sisters are happy. My platoon has been moved to the district of Joydepur. It is hot and muggy here. We seem always to be trudging through rice fields with water swirling around our ankles. Many boys have malaria; some have been bitten by snakes. I dream at night of the cool breeze that ripples through the orchards of Sabzbagh. In the months that I have been here we have done too much fighting. The Bengalis are small, thin people, but they are sly and quick and fight like scorpions. They neither look like us, nor speak our language, nor eat the same food. I have begun to hate them and am proud to say that I have already killed four. But now at night I sleep with my eyes open. I know a ghazi should not speak like this, but I am frightened. I don’t want to become a shaheed. Already sixteen jawans I knew here have been killed. Please ask my mother to pray for me. Allah listens to a mother’s prayers. Also, if I have done you any wrong, please forgive me today, for I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Your loving and obedient son, Mohammed Shareef.’
Rehmat finished the letter and handed it back to Barkat. A pot of boiling water bubbled unheeded on the stove. Rehmat removed his glasses and replaced them in his pocket. Laila stole a look at Barkat. His eyes were fixed unseeingly on the floor. Bua was muttering a prayer under her breath. Laila could tell she was praying from the way she fingered her cross.
‘What is a ghazi, Barkat?’ Laila asked.
‘Uh?’ Barkat roused himself from his stupor. ‘A ghazi is a Muslim who goes to fight a jehad and comes back alive.’
‘And a shaheed?’
‘A shaheed is one who is martyred in jehad.’
‘A ghazi when he finally dies, even as an old man in his bed, goes straight to paradise, no questions asked,’ added Rehmat. ‘Both ghazis and shaheeds have very high standing in heaven. On judgement day, while sinners like us trudge past in rags, they will sit up high on golden thrones gazing down at us.’
‘And a jehad is a battle, isn’t it?’
‘Jehad is a fight against unbelievers, kaffirs,’ said Rehmat fiercely. ‘It’s a Muslim’s duty.’
‘But my mother says the Bengalis are our brothers. They are Muslims too, aren’t they?’
Rehmat snorted. ‘Then why do they fight us?’ He handed the letter back to Barkat. ‘Have you met Bibi and Sahib yet?’
Barkat pocketed the letter. ‘Yes. They told me we’re going to Kalanpur this evening. How have things been there?’
‘The same. Sardar Begum is Sardar Begum. Kaneez is still alive,’ Rehmat said dryly. ‘And that son-of-a-dog …’
‘Um-hm, no bad language in front of the child,’ Bua warned. ‘Otherwise, the Owners will pull my ears.’
Though Bua’s veiled reference was for Laila’s benefit, Laila knew that Bua was talking about her parents. When not wishing to name them, the servants often spoke of them as ‘the Owners’, or else, ‘the Others’. When Bua used either of these codes, Laila understood that an implicit criticism of her parents was to follow. Laila was used to hearing Bua carp about Fareeda’s pernickety nature or Sardar Begum’s tight-fistedness. Young as she was, she knew that Bua was letting off steam. And Bua, for her part, appreciated that her complaints must never cross that fine line into open rebellion which would divide Laila’s loyalties.
‘Let me guess,’ Barkat said with a sardonic smile. ‘You mean Mashooq, Kaneez’s son-in-law?’
‘Who else? I met him in the bazaar, and he was whining about how hard it was to feed five mouths on a labourer’s salary at the milk plant. As if I earn ten thousand rupees a month and my children live on cream and honey! How, if Tariq Sahib wanted, he could speak to his employer at the factory and have his salary doubled in the blinking of an eye. How his children were starving to death. “Oye!” I wanted to say. “Your children wouldn’t starve if you spent your money buying food for them instead of pouring it down the gutters of that liquor shop.” But, I thought, I say one thing, and this lunatic will say a hundred. So I waited, with still the groceries to buy and lunch to prepare and that leech leaning on my cycle handlebars. Had he kept me another ten minutes, I’d never have been able to prepare lunch in time. And what an earful I would have got from the Others then, hain? The Others are not caring why or how you became late. They want their work done on time. They are not caring about your problems.’
‘Mashooq did the same to me the day before I left for my holiday,’ said Barkat. ‘He lurched up to me in the bazaar, breathing filthy fumes in my face. “If it isn’t the trusted slave from the great house,” he sneered. “What do you do when your master snaps his fingers at you? Lie down at his feet like an obedient dog?” I knew he was drunk, so I didn’t bother to break his face, as I would have if he’d been sober. I’ve seen him with these sinful eyes only – Allah silence my tongue this instant if I’m lying – outside the houses of bazaar women …’
‘Hush, Barkat,’ said Bua. ‘Child is listening. If it repeats to the Owners and says it heard from you, they will pull out all our tongues.’
‘Why did he accost you like that?’ Rehmat peered at Barkat through a haze of cigarette smoke.
‘Who knows what goes on inside the head of a crazy man? All I know is that Mashooq is a pervert. Look at the way he treats his wife.’
‘He beats her, doesn’t he?’ asked Laila.
‘Beats her?’ snorted Barkat. ‘If he wasn’t afraid of your parents and Sardar Begum, he’d have killed Fatima by now. You know well enough, Bua, that last year he broke her jaw, an arm and two ribs. If their neighbours hadn’t alerted us in time, Allah alone knows what he’d have done to her. As it was, she had to spend a week in hospital.
‘I’m not saying a man shouldn’t lift a hand against his wife. If the wife is disobedient, it’s his right – no, duty – to set her straight. When I got married, my wife wouldn’t show my mother proper respect. She refused to make hot chappatis for her, and sometimes she’d even answer me back. I used to hit her, across the cheek with the back of my hand. Tharrap! Like that. And then I’d make her apologize to me. But I only did it when she misbehaved. And why only then? Because I’m a man. Not a dog.’
; ‘Quite right, Barkat,’ Rehmat agreed, fishing in his pocket for a match to relight his cigarette. ‘A man has to be a man. Not a mouse and not a dog. But a man.’
‘Can a wife beat her husband?’ asked Laila.
‘No,’ said Barkat. ‘Women are weaker.’
‘Even if she picked up an axe or a knife?’ Laila made a slicing motion with her hand.
‘Lailu! Little girls don’t talk like that.’ Bua seized Laila’s hand and placed it in her lap. ‘All husbands beat their wives. It’s their right. My late husband – may Jesus Christ bless his soul – he’d never use a stick on a donkey even, so good he was. But he used to hurl his shoe at me whenever I put too much salt in the food.’
‘My Abu doesn’t beat my Ammi,’ declared Laila.
‘That’s different,’ said Barkat. ‘Rich men can command obedience.’
‘But if a man beats his wife needlessly, and she’s too weak to beat him back, then what can she do?’
‘She must tell her brother or her father, and they will help her,’ Barkat replied.
‘And if they don’t?’
‘They will. The holy Koran says men must take pity on those weaker than themselves. Our religion is very good to women. Before Islam came, do you know what they did to newborn girls in the holy city of Mecca? They used to bury them alive. Yes. Ask Rehmat if you don’t believe me.’
‘That was the age of ignorance.’ Rehmat nodded. ‘Our holy prophet, may peace be upon him, put a stop to all that. And now women go to schools, go out to work, even sing and dance inside the TV – but only shameless women do that.’
They were all agreed, however, that Kaneez’s daughter Fatima was not a shameless woman. In fact, they were unanimous in their opinion of her as a virtuous woman, singularly unfortunate in being shackled to Mashooq. As Barkat had observed when Fatima went back to Mashooq after the last beating, ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if tomorrow we heard he’d killed her.’